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L. R. Wickham, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 3 volumes. Translated with introduction and notes by Richard Price and MichaelGaddis., The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 59, Issue 1, April 2008, Pages 380–383, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flm159
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Extract
All the significant documents relative to the fourth ecumenical council appear here in English translation and annotation. Where discussion has advanced understanding since Schwartz the editors take due note, correct errors wisely, and introduce a number of important clarifications and suggestions of their own. I have sampled the translation; it is reliable. The annotation (excellent in scope), the introductions, the couple of appendices (‘The Documentary Collections’ and ‘Attendance and Ecumenicity’), a glossary, and important indexes will inform without overwhelming the historians to whom the work is by designation of the series intended.
Those of a nervous disposition with romantic notions about the ancient ecumenical councils would be well advised to avoid their acta; though edited and sometimes later falsified, they are all too clear about the conduct of the business. These full minutes of the Council of Chalcedon give a sense to the readers of immediate presence. In the earlier sessions dealing with Eutyches, Dioscorus, and the definition of faith, the drama of passionate debate and half-concealed intrigues is powerful and becomes almost perceptible. Beside the main figures personalities emerge from the background: the stenographers, for example, as at one point they become alarmed and irritated by suggestions that they have been guilty of misrepresentation. The full record shocks. It will not, I think, dissuade the sober and traditionally minded from accepting the fourth ecumenical council's statement of faith as in fact an authoritative declaration and as permanently valid. It may, though, promote a certain hesitancy to defend any loftier justification of the council's status.
